by Patty Byrne Pfalz
One of our most vibrant Faith in Action partnerships is our local Hallie Q Brown (HQB) Community Center! We support their food shelf through our Fields to Families Hunger Relief ministry and donation drives like Pack the Pews. We also get to provide food and information hands-on by helping with their Playground Container Gardens!
The gardens are located right next to the outdoor play area for the HQB Early Learning Center. The pre-school and kindergarten students are able to watch the vegetables grow over the summer. They help tend and water the plants, and even get to participate in harvesting the vegetables.
Having the gardens growing in the play area helps students to understand how plants grow and where our food comes from. It’s a lot of fun. Last year I helped with harvesting and I can tell you that when I dug up the potatoes, the little kids gathered around me as though I was digging up gold. Everyone wanted a potato. One little girl was surprised at how dirty they were! When I picked the corn, again, each of the kids wanted their own ear.
This year, we planted the gardens at the end of May and they are growing right on schedule. My partners from Unity (Anna and Barb) and I meet up on Wednesday mornings when we can to help tend the gardens. We overlap with the pre-schoolers’ playtime. After they have run around a bit, they become intrigued with what the old ladies are doing and come over to ask questions. They are hesitant to get their hands dirty but it is an opportunity to take a closer look and hear about how the gardens work.
Here’s an image from this past week. Miss Anna had a worm! And she encouraged the kids to touch it. There was a whole lot of “Ewwww, gross!” but despite their initial squeamishness, they all wanted to hear about how important worms are to the gardens. Then they enjoyed watching it go back in the soil, burrowing down to get back to the work worms do …
Just like many elements of nature work together to support a plant and help it grow, it takes many parts of a community to come together to nurture its children and help them grow. It is so rewarding to get the chance to teach our young neighbors about the ecosystem of food while being a supportive part of their ecosystem.
